It seems like I can't leave the house without hearing some sort of opinion about the most minute detail of the things in my life. This is largely unprovoked on my part, or is the result of some random, passing comment.
It gets old.
How's the line from the Boyd Rice song go? "they don't know anything about anything but seem to have opinions about everything.
Right about now, I'm thinking the best thing I could do for myself would be to stay the hell away from people altogether. It seems when they aren't giving unsolicited opinions on how to live my life, or why I should just embrace their idealistic hippie love crap, they're coming by to dump all sorts of inane dramas in my lap, expecting me to somehow pick up the ball and run with it.
Every day it becomes a little harder to be charming and smile and forgive all their little foibles. Well, frankly, I don't want to. I'm sick of it. All it results in is more foibles, more hassle. It's different if someone's proved themselves to deserve it, but most can't and won't because they don't.
So fuck it.
This town is like a vise-grip on my head right about now. I swear, I'm going to smack the next person that tries to give me directions by way of telling me where the old taco bell was. Learn to read a street sign, you fucking hayseed. And that's not even getting into all the dull, generic waspy sorts that seem to surround me. I would pay some serious money to see someone who is clearly of Polish decent or Puerto Rican or Vietnamese or Jewish or...
Well you get the idea.
But seriously. They all look exactly fucking the same. And they all seem to want it this way. The same bland, blond haircut; the same non descript manner of dress and the same generic mini van.
I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if this wasp cult actually had something going on upstairs but near as I can tell, they don't. You tell them anything that dares to venture outside of their sheltered concept of existence (which, by the way, is not hard to do) and you get this blank stare or awkward pause. Don't try to explain it to them. You'll just be wasting your breath. Their eyes will sort of gloss over and they'll say " well how 'bout that" in that farmer drawl.
It's about now that I have come to realize moving here was one of those classically bad ideas.
So I went to sign my offer letter for work yesterday. As I waited in the lobby to meet with my manager I saw the woman who had been at the testing session with me.
Oh wait, I didn't tell you about her, did I?
Okay. When I went to take the test, there was this middle aged woman wearing the most gaudy, floral print skirt I'd ever seen with a mismatched shirt and bad shoes. This was a little off putting because I really can't tolerate lack of style. Even the desperately impoverished can find a way to be stylish on a budget. But this sort of thing symbolizes everything I hate: mundaneness, lack of originality, lack of effort, lack of personality. But whatever. I figured, I can just ignore it right? Wrong!
You know the neurotic person at a job interview that tries very hard to make the insta best friend? This was her. First, she starts asking twenty questions to the other applicant and myself, fretting endlessly about having to take a test and her fear that she won't get the job. She offers, in a very limited amount of time, the knowledge that she got fired from her telemarketing job and how she has been going to interviews for months. Ugh. I really don't care, I don't even know her name yet, I don't want to hear her problems.
Then we get to the testing center. She actually tells the HR woman that she is afraid of not doing well on the test and begs her to give her the job. When the HR woman explains the process, with the background and reference checks, could easily take another two weeks. The crazy woman whines about how she needs a job before then. In fact, all she does is whine. Throughout the test she keeps trying to whine, about how hard it is, how long it is. It's all I can do to not say something very rude.
Well, I get out of there, and tell Rob the story. He makes me feel better by telling me that at least I will never have to deal with her again, after her behavior in the interview.
Which brings us to yesterday.
So there she is, waiting with me in the lobby. I am sitting on a two person couch. There are chairs on both sides of me. She sits next to me on the couch. Now, that is one of my biggest pet peeves. If I don't know you, if you aren't a friend, I would just as soon you give me my physical space. But then she starts talking to me, and starts touching my arm as she talks to me. I am pretty annoyed at this point. Of course, she asks questions, but most of them are pretty pointless and inane. Finally, the supervisor arrives and meets with me first. We go over my salary and benefits, and then I get sent on my merry way, with plans to come to the training class next monday.
But then I realize that I not only am going to have to work with her, but I will be in a training class with this woman for a whole week. So, I need to find a way to keep her away from me without being too blatantly rude. (Never my strong point. My feelings toward others tend to be glaringly obvious, despite my noble attempts.) The fact that this woman will want anyone near her to act as a sounding board for her neurosis doesn't help.
But then I thought of something even worse.
Well I busted my ass, pulling out all my best interviewing skills, to get this job. I was very proud of myself, because the pay is good and the company seems very good, and it was pretty much the ideal situation I was looking for. It even promised to be challenging.
And now I realize I could have been some poorly dressed whiner without even the modicum of professional social skills and still gotten the job.
That bugs me.
That bugs me a lot.
It really kind of steals my thunder, shatters the illusion of this good, promising job that I got.
Don't get me wrong. There will still be many advantages to having got this job and I am sure I will like working there overall, but there's something about knowing that I could have completely botched the interview and still got hired that bugs the living shit out of me.
Oh well. I suppose it is better than my fear that I would be working at Target, and the pay is more equivalent to the cost of living than I probably would have gotten in Chicago. Right?
Right?